President Bush spoke to the UN this a.m. Did any of you watch/hear it? I have not yet located a text of his or Anan’s remarks.
From what little I have seen, it doesn’t seem as tho he said much of anything new. Is this speech a significant event? Will it influence change in the international community’s position with respect to the situation in Iraq?
Haven’t seen it yet but …
I’ve just heard somebody on the radio talk about it and say that while he gave nothing up he did use conciliatory language (whatever that means).
The BBC story which I haven’t read yet
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3130880.stm
He was less than convincing:Transcript
Kofi Annan and chirac were not buying:
From Yojimbos’s BBC link:
"A year ago, President Bush told the same UN assembly that it had to deal with Iraq or risk the UN becoming irrelevant. "
Uh huh.
I heard the speech was received with stony silence, but have no cite.
Well, I heard the speech over PBS, with occaisional glimpses of CNN’s coverage. I noted some odd pauses that I couldn’t account for until I realised he was waiting for applause.
What confuses me more than anything was the lumping in of such concerns as nuclear proliferation and AIDS. While these are no doubt serious issues, the juxtaposition is…odd. Were the Bushiviks trying to downplay the dominance of Iraq as an issue?
Emphasis on abstinence as a preventative of AIDS and overpopulation, a promise of cheaper medicines to fight the African epidemic, and the future implementation of the Iraqi Ruling Council as governing body…
In other words…sex, drugs and the Iraqi role!
I was home sick from work today, (no, really) so I saw the speech live. You are right; he was met with respectful but stony silence throughout his speech. What really surprised me was that he spent the last 15 minutes of his speech not discussing the war on terror or the situation in Iraq, but on the sex trade market throughout the world. I’m not saying that this isn’t an important issue, but it didn’t really tie in very well with his first two themes.
It’s only Iraqi oil but we like it, like it, it’s okay!
The sex trade market . . . did someone put the wrong speech on the autocue, I’m thinking the guy would read a car repair manual out loud to the UN if it was put in front of him ?
Just so, Frosty. Its a minor question, really, considering the gravity of the situation, but why? No one could possibly be fooled into believing that Iraq was anything other than the whole focus of the excercise, so why even mention the other stuff? These people are a long way from “spontaneous”, so this was carefully considered. To what end, I have no idea.
Its either a)brilliant beyond my feeble comprehension or b) another flat-footed ham-fisted display of GeeDubyan diplomacy.
Unless…he only had a few things to say about Iraq, none of which were going to be greeted with wild enthusiasm. He had nothing to elaborate upon, just a few stubborn repititions of discredited justifications, none of which were going to win friends and influence people. Makes for a very short speech.
In that case, he may have added on the extra stuff as “filler”…talking about subjects entirely non-controversial to leave on a positive note. After all, who is going to object to outlawing slavery and combating AIDS? Other than France, of course.
I thought that was pretty odd as well… it really seemed off-topic to me, perhaps even filler.
I listened to the full speech from an MSNBC link to it online. I noted that he hit all the standard key points:
Leadoff reference to 9/11… Check (though, to be fair, he at least didn’t dwell on it too long)
Reference to “rape rooms”… Check
Saying “You’re either with us or against us”… Check (to be exact, “Between these alternatives there is no neutral ground.”)
Further reference to Iraq’s as-yet unfound WMD… Check
Pretty standard stuff, really. Later parts of the speech had the definite ring of a public television pledge drive. Specifically…
Frankly, I’m hoping that the United Nations does find a way to assist in the effort to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. By rights, the United States should clean up its own mess, but doing it that way will likely cause more harm than good, at least in the short run. The people of Iraq deserve better, if only the Bush Administration would be more willing to cede control of the effort to those who actually know what they are doing, and what is truly needed.
To be honest, the Bush Administration hasn’t earned the right to dictate terms to the rest of the world, but Bush’s speech said nothing about actually giving up any control. It seemed to me that Bush went there with one hand out to accept money, but the other hidden behind his back. Once again, American diplomacy receives the short shrift.
In other words, he was trying to pad the speech with a few cheap applause lines.
Just adding in my small contribution…
Speeches by both Chirac and Bush can be found in streaming video form from www.cspan.org It’s free, too, no signing up required.
It might help deflate the hearsay arguments about reception, at least for broadband users.
I’ll just toss in my two cents on what I did hear, which was Anan’s opening remarks to the assembly, which I thought were right on the mark and elolquently delivered.
I’ll just toss in my two cents on what I did hear, which was Anan’s opening remarks to the assembly, which I thought were right on the mark and eloquently delivered.
Only once, though. But you’re right about Annan - he struck the right tones as the top diplomat he is.
Now I’m going to be seriously ungracious (by my standards, at that). The AIDS and sex-slave stuff reminded me of his weirdly-moralistic stem-cell speech early in his term. Both seemed like the results of a shallow, unintellectual (not “stupid”) man, aware he’s being criticized as such (and correctly, and embarrassingly), trying to show that he is too a deep thinker who does too know what’s going on and what’s important.
I do think Bush was really trying to tell the UN his carefully-thought-out view (“Think think think” - Winnie the Pooh to himself) that it does have proper roles in the world, ancillary though they may be, that this list is what they are (again after careful, deep, painful thought), and so let’s all get on with it together.